The BEST Alternatives to Instagram in 2015

Instagram is one of the most popular social networking sites that crossed 400 Million users in late September 2015. This means it beats Twitter. Day and night you can see photos of your favorite celebrities that fill in your feed.

Apart from Instagram’s popular following and stardom, some of you might want to use another alternative to Instagram. I do not know why but there are some awesome apps available which are quite popular as well can’t match the popularity of Instagram.

Anyways, I am not here to discuss, why Instagram more accessible than many other social networks. Let’s just begin with the list of best alternatives to Instagram.

The apps that I will be listing here as best alternatives to Instagram are wonderful in clicking photos and applying effects to a photo is also easier in many. Moreover, I am sure many of you might be using them already. So, let’s begin.

Flickr (pronounced “flicker”) is an image hosting and video hosting website, and web services suite that was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and acquired by Yahoo in 2005. In addition to being a popular website for users to share and embed personal photographs, and effectively an online community, the service is widely used by photo researchers and by bloggers to host images that they embed in blogs and social media.

Photos and videos can be accessed from Flickr without the need to register an account but an account must be made in order to upload content onto the website. Registering an account also allows users to create a profile page containing photos and videos that the user has uploaded and also grants the ability to add another Flickr user as a contact. For mobile users, Flickr has official mobile apps for iOS, Android, PlayStation Vita, and Windows Phone operating systems, and an optimised mobile website.

Snapseed is a photo-editing application produced by Nik Software (a subsidiary of Google) for iOS and Android that allows users to enhance photos and apply digital filters.

Snapseed users can edit pictures using swiping gestures to select different effects and enhancements. Alternatively, users can opt for an “automatic” adjustment of color and contrast. Snapseed can save users’ editing history and redirect to any of the actions before. It can also create and save filter combinations by using the default filters and editing features. The list of special effects and filters includes Drama, Grunge, Vintage, Center-focus, Frames, and a Tilt-shift (which resizes photos). Snapseed 2.0 introduced new filters such as lens blur, glamour glow, HDR scape and noir, while also reformatting the tools section with a clearer user interface.

Pixlr is a cloud-based set of image tools and utilities, including a number of photo editors, a screen grabber browser extension, and a photo sharing service. The suite was intended for non-professionals, however the apps range from simple to advanced photo editing. It can be used on PCs, and on smartphones or tablets using a mobile app.

Camera+ is an app for Apple’s iOS mobile operating system developed by tap tap tap. The app serves as an alternative to the standard iOS camera app, primarily adding basic and advanced editing tools (including special effects and lighting filters), an image stabilizer, and integrated sharing with Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter.

Camera+ has received generally positive reception; PC Advisor gave the app 4-and-a-half stars out of 5 and declared it a “must-have” app for iPhone photographers, praising its advanced editing functionality for allowing users to “(make) poor snaps into great photographs that will wow your friends”.

Hipstamatic is a digital photography application for the Apple iPhone and Windows Phone sold by Synthetic Corporation. It uses the phone’s camera to allow the user to shoot square photographs, to which it applies a number of software filters to make the images look as though they were taken with a vintage film camera. The user can choose among a number of effects which are presented in the application as simulated lenses, films and flashes. Several of these are included with the application, while others may be acquired through an in-app purchase.

Hipstamatic is part of a retro trend in photography, which has seen a rise in the popularity of cheap and technically obsolete analog cameras (such as Lomography and Polaroid instant cameras), as well as software filters and smartphone software that emulate such cameras. Other vintage photography applications include CameraBag and Instagram. Like Hipstamatic, they often include social networking features. Some phones include similar built-in filters.

Photo editing made fun, fast, and easy. Touch your way to better-looking iPhone pictures using slide bar adjustments, or let automatic one-touch fixes do it for you. Adobe Photoshop Mix is a free iPad app for more powerful, non-destructive edits that straighten the perspective of an image, reduce camera blur, apply Content-Aware fill magic and more.

Adobe Photoshop Express is a Flash-based image editing web and mobile application from Adobe used to directly edit photos on blogs and social networking sites, so that users do not have to download or upload images. Similar to Picnik, the application currently works with sites such as Facebook, Flickr, Picasa and Photobucket.

Want to take amazing photos? Stand out from the crowd – make your photos POP! Retrica will transform your photo experience into something truly memorable. Choose how you want to remember that great view from your trip, or that delicious meal you shared with a friend.

With Retrica’s live filters, you can preview how your photos will look, before you even take the photo! Retrica also comes with trendy logos to make your photos more noticeable. And with over 100 filters, you’ll never run out of options. More than 100 million photos are taken per day with Retrica.

Set the time interval, and take consecutive photos using the collage feature; it’s like being in a photo booth! Take fun and quirky pictures with your friends. You have the option to add Retrica’s watermark logo, so everyone can see the fun you’re having with Retrica.

Creativity is more than just a photo filter—PicsArt provides you with everything you need to make amazing photo edits, artistic camera shoots, photo collages, create digital drawings, and communicate with other creatives who have joined our mission to beautify the world.

250 million people have already downloaded this free app for powerful image editing and photo montages, using hundreds of tools and effects that you can find only in professional photo editing programs. PicsArt inspires you to create beautiful images anytime, anywhere. Transform your photos into works of art and let the world discover them!

Jaspal is a web designer and owns a web development company Web Seasoning. He is also an full-time online geek. Follow him on @twitter or sign-up for the email newsletter and get daily updates from this blog.